Learning leadership happens experientially, through involvement in opportunities to practice the skills, experiment with approaches, and try on the roles. For youth leadership development, it means creating opportunities for young people to do more than hear stories of great leadership or participate in skills-building activities. In much of her work, the author uses the language of "youth in governance" rather than "youth leadership development." A youth-in-governance approach pushes her to think beyond programs that help youth develop leadership skills and toward contexts that offer youth opportunities to practice leadership. In this article, the author enumerates some strategies for the development and practice of youth leadership (or youth in governance). She concludes that if people are to be most effective at supporting the leadership development of youth, they will have to identify or create more authentic opportunities for those youth to practice leadership. That will mean addressing the barriers that prevent youth from having authentic leadership roles in their programs, organizations, and communities (including their own assumptions about "appropriate" roles for young people). (Contains 3 notes.) [This article was written with Jennifer McClean.]